#jupiter

#jupiter

The gas giant's shape and size, previously known only from data collected more than 45 years ago, have been updated at last. The biggest planet in the Solar System just got smaller and flatter. Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription Subscribe to this journal Receive 51 print issues and online access $199.00 per year only $3.90 per issue. Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout.

The solar system's most giant planet is slightly less of a giant than scientists once thought. Jupiter, a world that is so huge that it could hold 1,000 Earths, is eight kilometers narrower in width at its equator and 24 kilometers flatter at its poles than had been previously estimated, according to a new study. Textbooks will need to be updated, said Yohai Kaspi, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and senior author of the study, in a statement.

Earth may be of interest to us, since we live on it, but to an external observer, our Solar System, outside of the Sun, is dominated by Jupiter. In fact, outside of the Sun, Jupiter accounts for 250% as much mass as all other bodies in the Solar System combined. Moreover, Jupiter's major moons contain enormous quantities of water - with three of them having more water than even Earth does - and pose fascinating possibilities in the quest for life beyond our own planet.

The core of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, has long been a source of mystery for astronomers: an object so unfathomably dense and hot that it defies comprehension. Conventional theories have suggested for years that the gas giant's behemoth interior was formed following an enormous collision with an early planet. The "giant impact" theory suggests that roughly half of Jupiter's core originated from the remains of such a planet, explaining what researchers believe to be its strange, " fuzzy" interior.

Jupiter's presence actually makes these collisions far more likely on Earth, and there's more than a 70% chance that the K-Pg extinction wouldn't have occurred without Jupiter.

The Rhea1 processor design has been completed and is now set for manufacturing by TSMC, with a projected start of silicon samples expected in early 2026.

Scott Bolton's first encounter with Io took place in the summer of 1980, right after he graduated from college and started a job at NASA. The Voyager 1 spacecraft had flown past this moon of Jupiter, catching the first glimpse of active volcanism on a world other than Earth. Umbrella-shaped outbursts of magmatic matter rocketed into space from all over Io's surface.

The Jupiter supercomputer at ISC Germany has launched into the number four spot on the Top500 list, making it Europe's most powerful system.